The global head of equity derivative sales at Morgan Stanley — regarded as one of the biggest names in the market — is set to leave the US bank.

Alvise Munari, who has led the business at Morgan Stanley since 2010, is leaving, according to two people familiar with the matter. He did not return calls seeking comment and his plans are unclear.

Munari is one of the most high-profile names in the equity derivatives market, with the business he led named equity derivatives house of the year by both IFR and Risk magazine earlier this year.

He has held a string of senior structuring and sales roles at a range of Wall Street banks, heading equity and interest-rate structuring at Goldman Sachs and later equity derivatives marketing and alternative investments at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

He joined Morgan Stanley in 2010 as global head of equity derivatives sales and financial engineering, reporting to Luc Francois and Ted Pick, then global co-heads of equities. Pick was named sole head in 2011 and Francois left the bank in 2012.

The bank's equities business performed well in 2013, with full-year revenues at $6.4 billion, up from $4.8 billion in 2012. First-quarter revenues for the equities business, at $1.8 billion, were up 16% year-on-year.

That performance has been built on the strength of Morgan Stanley's cash equities and prime brokerage business, regarded as an industry leader.

The bank ranked number one for cash equities and prime services revenues in 2013, according to rankings by consultancy Coalition, ahead of US rivals Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan.

Munari is the second London-based senior executive to leave Morgan Stanley in the space of a few weeks. Financial News reported late last month that Chris Yoshida, who had headed European rates sales at the US bank, was leaving to join Deutsche Bank as global head of that team.

He is also the second global head to exit one of the leading equities houses this year.

Financial News revealed in March that Phil Allison, the global head of cash equities at UBS, was leaving. He will join KCG Holdings later this year, the US-based electronic market making specialist, as head of its European business.